Snake Stories

So I’ve been working at the spa for almost a month now. I didn’t realize how challenging the transition from working alone in the quiet of my home to being in a bustling business full of people was going to be. Truth be told, I’m still adjusting to that. I’m also realizing that I may not be able to fully acclimate to it. But other aspects of the job are going very well.

I apologize for my manners (viz., the lack thereof). I hope that everyone has had, is having, or will have a lovely holiday season, of course. But there just hasn’t been much to celebrate of late ... and recently, another surprising development knocked our moods back even more.

Some of you may remember that I’d been having difficulties with my Linux box. Recently, a dear friend ended that via a shiny Debian install. O’course, before it was installed, all my important files were copied elsewhere; and I’ve been slowly making progress on getting the new house nicely appointed, so to speak. One of the things I remembered to get from the old Firefox was my most recent bookmarks file... from 2008.

Honest: I am thinking about more things than music these days. But those other things too often result in a blur of attentional demands upon me, leaving me little time to even attempt to compose cogent thoughts, let alone a cogent essay. Recently I’ve been thinking about Queen a lot, so it seems natural to commemorate the band’s truly inimitable front man, Freddie Mercury.

Let me be clear from the outset: I am not questioning the man’s monstrous musical talent in any way by asking that question. I ask it because at some point back in the 1970s, I selected a song as my favorite Elton John song. (For those who don’t know or may have forgotten, toward the bottom of this list I provide a hint about how bad I am at choosing favorites of nearly everything.) That Elton fact having clawed its way back to my conscious brain, of course I had to listen to the song ...

I rolled up the garage door yesterday, intently focused on reclaiming a portion of our yard from the weeds that flourished while I was sick and unable to do much of anything. The scent that wafted over me sent my mind on an entirely different path, however.

First things first: all three of us passed our promotion tests, so tomorrow we will be presented with certificates and the new belts for our respective kyu. Snolf Mk. I and are now seventh kyu, while Snolf Mk. II is ninth kyu (after less than a full year of training). As should be clear from the numerals, we are all still in relatively low ranks (first kyu is the level at which one prepares for black belt; one who has earned the first-level black belt is a “shodan”). The level doesn’t necessarily correspond to how much one has learned about oneself over the journey, though; and now that I have passed through the eye of this needle, I think I’ve learned—or at least been reminded of—a fair bit about myself.